It's a shame that people think that copyrighted content can be freely copied without attribution.

I am talking about htcwiki, a wiki-style website for people wanting to post material about HTC devices, those Windows Mobile devices we all know so well (full disclosure: I am a Microsoft Windows Mobile MVP).

According to WHOIS, htcwiki is registered to Waggener Edstrom Strategic Communications, the PR giant. The information I have is that it actually belongs toHTC, the Taiwan-based manufacturer of mobile devices. HTC is the company behind some of the most successful Windows Mobile devices in the market, including those branded as i-mate, T-Mobile, O2, Cingular and others.

In the frontpage you will see a picture from our review of the HTC Universal, and on the page with HTC Universal information you will read our full HTC Universal (O2 Exec) review, plus our pictures. You will even find the Today screen in one of the screenshots with the Owner Name "Geekzone" in it. One of the images is hotlinked to our server, and you will see the default graphic we send out in these cases.

If the page goes away before you can see it on htcwiki, here is a pdf of this page.

Why I am ranting about this? For a company that makes the most interesting Windows Mobile devices, and it's being supported by a PR company such as WaggEd, it's a shame that they let people post someone else's material on their on-line property, without taking appropriate steps to ensure no copyright is breached.

By way of example, and not as a limitation, you agree that when using the Communication Services, you will not: ... Upload, or otherwise make available, files that contain images, photographs, software or other material protected by intellectual property laws, including, by way of example, and not as limitation, copyright or trademark laws (or by rights of privacy or publicity) unless you own or control the rights thereto or have received all necessary consent to do the same.

...

Pursuant to Title 17, United States Code, Section 512(c)(2), notifications of claimed copyright infringement should be sent to Service Provider's Designated Agent.

Who is the "Service Provider's Designated Agent"? There's no identification anywhere in the site, not even a way to contact HTC through the site.

Oh, I hear you saying, why don't you e-mail the htciwiki guys directly? I would, but the only way to contact anyone on that site is by registering and then sending a private message to one of the moderators. I don't want to register on htcwiki and I don't want to talk to a moderator. The site has no contact information that I could easily find.

I also get up to the walls here because HTC doesn't even reply to our e-mails about their products, and never sent anything for us to review (the HTC products we review are branded i-mate, Telecom or O2).

It would be great to have an acknowledgement with proper attribution in the article. Even better would be to actually have a communication channel between HTC and people writing about their products, because the way they do it now, is really, really, well... sad.